Love is a Blasphemy
by Aleatoire
Summary: Hugh doesn't understand why Penny can't love just him. One-shot, takes place about 400 years before the plot of BNW.


Reese Irwin

Brave New World Project

"Love is a Blasphemy"

_Everyone belongs to everyone else. Everyone belongs to everyone else. Everyone belongs to everyone else –_

At this point, tall, golden brown-haired and slightly dishevelled Hugh Foster shut the door of the nursery, effectively blocking out the hypnopaedia that had only recently begun to irk him. He turned around, intent on getting to his helicopter without seeing anyone.

"Hugh?" Just as he'd reached the lift to the roof, a soft, feminine voice forced him to turn around. He would do anything for that voice, and its owner, and it puzzled him inexplicably. "I thought you were coming to get me after work so we could go to the feelies."

"I thought you were through with having me – you've been having Robert for nearly a week now," he replied, obviously confusing her.

"Oh, you're silly Hugh; I can have you both can't I? Why, I've had plus of twenty men in the space of a month -,"

"I don't care, Penny, I don't!" Hugh cut her off, gasping feverishly as he came to understand why the hypnopaedia was bothering him so. "You think you belong to everyone else but you don't! You belong to me, understand? Not Robert, not Henry, no one else but me, Hugh!" He stepped towards her and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her so hard she began to cry.

Disgusted that she couldn't understand, he let go of her and made a move for the lift, leaving her to drop to her knees, gasping and sobbing, her chestnut brown hair undulating about her face in perfect waves.

Once he was seated in his helicopter, away from pneumatic, beautiful Penny, he held his head in hands, hating his sudden abhorrence of all he'd been taught. Why now did he have to find an issue with the standard promiscuity? Why was he thinking this way? What he was experiencing was independent thought, and his mind, conditioned to believe what it was told, couldn't comprehend it.

As he flew home, the society that spanned below him was a terrible thing: the games of Obstacle Golf being played were heinous crimes, the children partaking in their erotic games were a scandal.

Upon arriving at his rooms, Hugh flung himself down on his bed with the largest, most unsatisfied sigh he'd ever let out. He wished someone would understand, but everyone had the same, singular conditioned mind – one he'd shared until just today.

But what frustrated him the most was that Penny didn't feel the same way he did. Did she not feel the same attachment as he? The answer was no, of course, since he knew he was acting strange, but it seemed right to him.

He considered taking a few grammes of _soma_ to escape all the confusion, but he wanted comprehension. He couldn't see through to the other side of this dilemma without first going back, back to the night when he'd first had her…

_Slowly and deliberately, she unzipped her midnight blue viscose slip, the last article of clothing separating them from each other. As she shed the garment and tossed it to the side casually, Hugh couldn't help but think that she was one of the more handsome women he'd had in his life, with her perfectly pneumatic body – yes, she'd even asked him that, hadn't she?_

_ "Pneumatic enough for you?" She'd asked with a small smirk, and he had nodded and stepped towards her, wanting to caress the soft flesh she so obviously took pride in displaying. _

_ As soon as he'd reached her they'd both made calculated, precise movements, and then they were together, and not even _soma _would have made him happier. _

Touching her, being with her was unlike being with any other woman, and when it was all over that night, she had gone on about all the other men she was going to be having soon, and she was proud: proud of being so popular, so promiscuous, so _desirable_.

At the time he'd thought little of it, but now…now he couldn't stand a word of it passing through his mind. He flipped over on his stomach and grabbed his pillow, stuffing it over his head as if he could drown out his musings.

He had to see the World Controller. He didn't know what else he could do. He would do that tomorrow, but for now, he wanted Penny, no matter whether she wanted him the same way or not.

"Hugh? What are you doing here?" Penny looked shocked as he strode straight through the door and into her room, not even bothering to say hello. He wouldn't say anything tonight; what he wanted to say was so blasphemous, so utterly _smutty_ that he could barely stand to hear himself think it.

Instead he swung the door shut and unzipped all his clothing fast as he could. Before allowing her to do the same, he caught her in an embrace and tilted her head up so their lips would meet. Centimetres apart, she broke the hold and backed up against the wall, the look in her almond-coloured eyes clearly confusion.

"I've never had somebody look at me like that Hugh, ever. I-it scares me. Please, we both know how to -," She gasped against his mouth as he trapped her up against the wall, smothering her small frame as he kissed her with more fervency and passion than he'd ever kissed anyone before.

And she – shoved him off of her, or at least tried to. He got the hint, even in his hazy state of mind, and stepped back, wary of what she would tell him next. "Hugh, please, go home. I can't – we can't…not tonight, I'm-I'm tired."

The rejection stung his pride as much as a slap in the face would his cheek; Hugh Foster, an attractive, young Alpha specimen, could have any girl he wanted when he damn well pleased! He could clearly see his behaviour was frightening her, though, so he gathered up his clothes, zipped on his pants and hastily marched out the door she was holding open, her shoulders visibly shaking.

He heard a stifled sob as he walked away, and he almost went back to console her, but he knew his presence would only upset her further.

He cared about how she felt, because - he groaned internally as he stepped into the lift – he _loved _her. Such an emotion was spoken of, but rarely did anyone use the actual term for it: it was too graphic. He cringed into a corner of the lift and resisted the urge to punch something; feeling such a strong attachment to another person was unheard of.

He didn't know if he would be punished for such blasphemy or…he didn't want to think of the consequences, but he had to tell someone. Surely not Penny herself, she would break down crying in front of his eyes, or faint, or do something equally dramatic, and he wouldn't be able to bear it.

_The World Controller, in the morning_, he thought as he began the short flight back home.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Foster?" World Controller of Western Europe, Fred Mond asked Hugh once they were sitting comfortably in his spacious office.

"I – something is wrong with me, Mr. Mond," Hugh sat forward with his elbows on his knees, looking troubled.

"And you think I can help you," Mond stated as he, in contrast, sat back in his chair, the picture of ease.

"Well, I'm not sure Your Fordship, that's part of the problem…I don't know if my issue is punishable, or fixable, or…"

"Well what is it then? Let's hear it," he almost appeared bored as he sat there, peering over his black-framed spectacles at the younger man.

"I think…I think I'm…I think I'm in love," Hugh finally blurted, and he felt himself going red in the face as he voiced it aloud for the first time.

All traces of apparent boredom ran from Mond's face as he too sat forward, intent. "In love eh? And who are you in love with? Does she return the…err, feeling?"

"Penny Merryton, and no, she doesn't even know what love is, and I shan't tell her at risk of her distress." The Controller smiled at that; Hugh was retaining some logic yet.

"Well, as you don't wish to distress her, you'd best leave her alone and never have her again, do you understand?"

"But how can I do that, when I'll be seeing her nearly every day -," the thought of never seeing Penny again was distressing_ Hugh_, though he knew it was the only course of action he could take without being sent straight to the Crematorium.

"Simple," Fred Mond answered with a smile, "You'll be going to Samoa."

_In AF 173, one of the first colonies for people who weren't fitting into ordinary society was created in Samoa, and still exists to this day in AF 632. His current Fordship Mustapha Mond is quoted as saying, "It's lucky that there are such a lot of islands in the world. I don't know what we should do without them. Put you all in the lethal chamber, I suppose." And they had been doing that to the many more mistakes they'd been making back then, up until Samoa was colonized; lucky for Hugh Foster, one of society's mistakes. _


End file.
